


Through the Fire and Flames

by BleuMorpho



Series: Of Wars and Dragons [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Some minor violence and torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 11:30:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9489062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleuMorpho/pseuds/BleuMorpho
Summary: Almost two years after joining Newt in his magical suitcase, Credence finds himself at the mercy of three fanatics determined to deliver him on a silver platter to their master, Grindelwald.





	

Credence awoke slowly, his limbs heavy with a creeping cold he had not experienced in almost two long years. Even before Newt had blessed him with his own cot up in one of the higher levels of the shed, the Obscurial had been carefully wrapped in a cocoon of feathers and cotton as he pulled himself back together grain by grain. Never again, Newt had promised, would he have to wake up shivering in a grey house with grey walls and a bleak future. Instead, he had grown used to gentle rays of sunshine, as magically fake as it was, flittering across his eyelids as the waking beasts began their morning symphony.

 

Now there was only silence, and that simple lack of sound sent his mind into a horrified overdrive as he jerked to full awareness.

 

A blue tint assaulted his vision as he blinked the stiffness of unconsciousness away, and the biting chill that surrounded him continued to seep through his light jacket and into his pores. It was as if he were underwater, the air rippling and glistening unnaturally as he pushed his upper body off of the ground. He had no memory of how he had gotten to this strange place, and it certainly wasn’t familiar territory. His head didn’t throb, and his body didn’t ache, so a physical altercation or one of his ever-rarer Episodes was unlikely.

 

Once Credence was fully sitting, the darkness within his blood began to shiver at the first stirs of panic.

 

He was hovering in a large, magical bubble.

 

He reached out with a trembling hand and poked the curved wall nearest to him, noting how the cold intensified when his skin made contact with the magical energy entrapping him. It felt more like a wisp of air that had been frozen in time, rather than a wall of water as he had assumed at first. His breath came out in billowing white puffs, each one becoming quicker and smaller as his throat squeezed and his lungs tightened.

 

He was trapped!

 

…No.

 

He had been _captured_.

 

The darkness within pulsed and writhed as he frantically searched for any sign of human life on the other side of his magical prison. While the bubble cast everything in a blue light, the walls were not completely opaque. He could see a simple dining table and chairs to his right, a long rectangular rug on the floor beneath him, and tall ceilings with walls devoid of any decoration. None of it looked familiar, and it was all the exact opposite of welcoming.

 

Credence tried to search his memory for the moment he had been taken, but the last thing he could remember was walking through the crowded markets of Diagon Alley with his hands full of books and knickknacks as Newt—

 

Newt!

 

The darkness practically vibrated with the urge to escape as Credence realized that Newt was nowhere to be seen. Newt would never be so cruel as to imprison him, not after all they had been through, and the wizard barely left his side when they were traveling together outside of the suitcase. Credence couldn’t remember walking more than a foot away from Newt’s shoulder during their most recent shopping escapade, so he doubted that they had gotten pulled away from one another in the traffic.

 

Which meant that they had been separated by force.

 

“Ah, you’re awake. About time.”

 

Credence’s teeth sank deep into his tongue with an alarming amount of force, practically trembling with the effort of keeping the darkness from exploding from his body. It was not a familiar voice, but the sheer indifference and disgust in the newcomer’s tone was enough to make Credence ill. Oh, he had heard that tone of voice many times from so many different people, and in his two years of peace he had almost forgotten how deeply it could cut into his very soul. A deep rumble whispered across his memories - **_squib - unteachable_** \- **_done with you_** \- as he swallowed the blood seeping into his mouth.

 

He turned as best he could in his cramped space, his shoulders hunching and his hands burying within the depths of his jacket. A tall gentleman no older than forty stood beside an old corduroy armchair in which he had been reclining, his dark hair cropped short and swept to the side. He wore a simple dark trenchcoat and shining leather shoes, a crooked wand twirling lazily between his fingers as he stared at Credence’s face with a blank expression. His eyes were cold and dark, but the Obscurus beneath Credence’s skin recoiled at the burning hunger in their depths.

 

“The others will be joining us soon. I suggest you try not to be too difficult.” The man’s accent was confusing, first lifting in an almost British fashion and then turning into a faintly German growl. Credence remained silent, watching for any signs that the man would become violent at a moment’s notice. It was obvious that the people who had captured him knew exactly what Credence was and what he was capable of, otherwise the bubble would have been unnecessary to their needs. Whether or not they required him to be alive and whole for their purposes remained to be seen.

 

The stranger kept his eyes on Credence as he moved near the dining area, his wand always poised and at the ready. He did not taunt his prisoner, nor did he make any move to harm him, but Credence had learned the hard way that not all enemies used such barbaric methods to achieve their goals. And so they remained in a silent staring contest, until only about a minute later the sound of a door slamming open reached their ears.

 

“Ernst!” As Credence watched, a young hurricane in female form strode into the room. Her long blonde hair was swept back in an elaborate pinned style that was beginning to fall out of place, her deep blue eyes wide and her smile a wicked open snarl. Those bulging eyes quickly fell to Credence, her vicious grin turning almost manic in its intensity. “Ah! The Obscurus awakens!”

 

It took every ounce of control Credence had gathered since his attacks on New York to morph his expression into something he hoped resembled confusion.

 

‘ _Never act like you know what they are talking about. Even if you do._ ’ Newt had always told him. ‘ _Paranoia and guilt are humanity’s biggest faults. It makes bad people make mistakes._ ’

 

Newt had also encouraged Credence to stay silent unless otherwise forced to speak, and he put that advice into full effect now. As the woman stepped closer to his position in the air, a second man followed in her footsteps and stood in the doorway they had just emerged from. He, too, had bright blonde hair that appeared green due to Credence’s tinted vision, and a long mustache that prickled his lips as he spoke.

 

“Hmm, still human,” he remarked softly, turning to the dark-haired man that had been guarding Credence. “Has he tried to escape?”

 

“No, he just woke up.”

 

“Oh, you are a fine prize, indeed!” The British woman giggled a shrill, sound and stroked the exterior of the bubble with her index finger. Credence felt his face twist up into a grimace against his will, folding his limbs closer to his center and glaring at his boots. “Grindelwald will be _so_ happy to see you!”

 

“Florence, please, try to have some amount of self-control,” the man with the moustache sighed. The woman—Florence—removed herself from Credence’s space, but her grin remained as wide and disturbing as before.

 

Credence swallowed the whimper that threatened to crawl up his throat at that dark, familiar name. Once he had gotten more comfortable with magic and his backwards introduction to the wizarding world, Newt had sat him down and explained what had happened to them all that fateful night in the subway. The magizoologist had kept his eyes on the wall over Credence’s shoulder as he wove a tale of dark magical legends, a small rebellion that thrived off of misfortune and discord among the wizards and mortals, led by a powerful, greedy man by the name of Gellert Grindelwald. Credence hadn’t slept a wink that night, too tense and worried that Grindelwald would suddenly sweep into the suitcase, subdue him, and drag him away for good.

 

Credence was disgusted with himself when the realization that the dark wizard had sent his followers to accomplish the task instead sent a small twinge of anguish up his spine.

 

“Should I send a message to Grindelwald?” The first man joined his comrades without a glance to Florence or Credence, keeping his wand in hand at all times.

 

“No, we should wait until we’re closer to headquarters.”

 

“What? Why?” Florence screeched. Credence focused on regulating his breathing and keeping the darkness at bay. “We have the Obscurus in our grasp! Why do we have to wait?”

 

“And what if we are wrong, my dear?” Mustache Man stepped forward, silently twirled his wrist, and brought the floating bubble closer to where he stood. Credence tried his best to make eye contact, but had to look away in order to concentrate on his control. “All of the records indicate that the Obscurus was destroyed. There have been no sightings since. We are basing this entire plan on nothing but suspicion and hope.”

 

“It fits too well, Thomas! We captured the Obscurus he fought so hard to control! He’ll be _pleased_ with us!” Florence’s voice began to climb in volume and intensity, as though she hoped that the more passionate she was about her expectations, the more realistic they would become.

 

The darkness calmed slightly when Credence put the pieces together. They didn’t know for certain that he was an Obscurial. Grindelwald didn’t even know what they were up to! All he had to do was pretend he was human, and they might let him go!

 

‘ _Or they could decide you’re useless and kill you on the spot_ ,’ his survival instincts warned.

 

“And if we are wrong, he will kill us all...or worse,” Thomas said. “Do you want to risk being thrown to the Ministry like scraps because you embarrassed him?”

 

Florence’s lips tightened and her eyes grew impossibly wider. She fiddled with the black shawl that was wrapped around her shoulders and bowed her head in defeat. Thomas nodded and looked back at where Credence floated, utterly at their mercy and silent.

 

“We’ll travel to headquarters, and on the way...we’ll see about this Obscurus.”

 

Credence ground his teeth together as his panic morphed into a smoldering fury. These people, these crazy fanatics, talked about him as if he were not even in the room. They called him the Obscurus, because that was all they saw—it was all they cared about. Just as Grindelwald had before, they sought only to use him as a weapon, a weak-minded tool to further their own standing in a small group of bigoted murderers. Everything else about his situation seemed hopeless, and he still didn’t know what would happen to him, but Credence swore then and there that he would never release his darkness in their presence.

 

Even if it killed him, he refused to give them the satisfaction.

 

* * *

 

 

The Obscurus was not a sentient being. Despite its constant presence, Credence could not communicate with it like it was a person, and the Obscurus did not communicate back. However, after his impassioned oath to himself to keep his dark magic at bay out of spite, it was almost as if they had reached a temporary truce through their combined anger and pain. Normally, his Obscurus was a constant prickling beneath his skin that he had learned to ignore and live with; now it settled back into his bones like a coiling snake waiting patiently to strike. He found that it barely took half of the usual effort to subdue the Obscurus despite his constantly raised adrenaline and anxiety.

 

This was quite fortunate, because it allowed him to focus more on his surroundings and his captors.

 

Ernst, Florence, and Thomas were all extremely different sides of the same coin, and did not particularly get along with one another. Credence had originally believed Florence and Thomas to be in some form of intimate relationship, but he overheard the word “cousin” dropped at one point during one of their many whispered disagreements, and made no further assumptions after that. Ernst kept mostly to himself, and seemed to have an obsession with admiring Credence through the bubble. While they traveled during the night across a vast expansion of forests and hills, the trio would pass the spell maintaining the bubble’s existence in order to save their magical energy, and the amount of bickering over whose turn it was to keep Credence contained escalated the longer they were on the road. The only thing that they all seemed to agree upon without hesitation was that Credence was not giving them the proper Obscurus form that they craved as proof of their success.

 

And so they tried to force him into it.

 

Constantly.

 

“Why won’t you change?!” Florence screamed, raising her tiny wand and throwing yet another Cruciatus Curse through the bubble’s wall. Credence whimpered as the spell traveled over his entire body, stabbing and burning at every inch of his skin again and again and again. He had lost the ability to scream the third time she had cast it that evening.

 

‘ _The Obscurus is a defense mechanism you have built up over the years._ ’ Newt’s gentle voice echoed through his mind. ‘ _There are going to be times you cannot repress it, even if you want to. The key is to try to focus on something else, to push the pain and fear out of the forefront of your mind until you are safe again._ ’

 

And so he focused on Newt.

 

Pushing through the fire that coursed through his body, Credence conjured images of Newt’s tender smile whenever he caught Credence playing with the Mooncalves. He relived the smell of hay, dirt, and rainwater that clung to Newt’s hair after a long day of cleaning the habitats. He imagined the taste of blood on his tongue was that of chocolate frogs and tea as Newt kissed him chastely on his birthday. He clung to memories of laughter, of touch, of comfort, of an all-encompassing _love_.

 

Credence focused, and he repressed, and he wept harder than he ever had before.

 

A part of him hoped that Newt wouldn’t come after them, because one magizoologist against three ruthless psychopaths was a recipe for disaster. Credence would never forgive himself if his darkness was the reason the wizarding world lost one of its brightest stars in a wet, uninhabited forest in the middle of nowhere. If that happened, Credence would finally give in to the violent storm that consumed his soul and destroy everything in his path until he finally vanished into the air for good.

 

And yet the other half of him screamed silently for Newt to come and save him from this Hell. As the days passed in a blur of confinement and torture and loneliness, he slowly began to wonder if Newt had even realized that he was gone. He wondered if Newt had given up on finding him, and packed up his magical suitcase and went about his life as though Credence had never existed in the first place.

 

The screaming witch continued her assault, and Credence felt his hope slipping away.

 

* * *

 

It had been days, certainly more than a week, since Credence had been ripped from Newt’s side. Credence was hardly able to raise his pinkie let alone sit upright within the bubble anymore, and he had not yet uttered a single word to any of his tormentors. He had also managed to keep the Obscurus from manifesting outside of him, though for how much longer he would continue to keep his vindictive oath was uncertain.

 

Ernst had been magically forcing him to eat stale pieces of bread and meat at least twice a day, and the older man seemed to enjoy pouring water down Credence’s throat a little more than was probably morally acceptable. Thomas would wander off on his own for hours during the day, seemingly to communicate with other Grindelwald supporters, and return to lead the way to their ever-moving headquarters overnight. Thomas did not seem to pay Credence any mind while they were traveling, but the Obscurial could feel an intense gaze studying his frail form more and more each day. Florence…

  
Florence was a wreck of a woman if Credence ever saw one.

 

“You can’t keep torturing him, my dear. He’ll go mad,” Thomas scolded softly. Florence continued her fervent pacing around their tiny campfire while Ernst took his daytime nap with his back against a large tree. Gentle wafts of smoke danced above the trees, and the sounds of faraway wildlife both soothed and agitated Credence’s heartache in equal measure.

 

“It won’t come out! Grindelwald said it was a manifestation of pain and sorrow! Pain should work!” Her tone would have sounded more petulant and angry had it not teetered on pathetically desperate. Her emotional distraction had saved Credence a torture session the past two days, though he silently believed Ernst had offered to take over and simply never followed through. “It should come out!”

 

“...maybe...there isn’t something in there at all.” A heavy silence fell over the campsite, the crackling fire popping and sparking with every second that passed. Florence’s breathing took on a wheezing quality, and she sat down upon a nearby rock with a gasp.

 

“No. Nonono—we—we just aren’t trying hard enough!” She whispered to her feet.

 

“Florence, please, don’t make a scene.” Thomas stepped up to face Credence’s huddled form with a grimace of frustration and barely-suppressed disgust. “Tell me honestly, son. Are you an Obscurus?”

 

Credence would have laughed if he had the breath or the energy. Over a week of walking and tormenting him and they only now decided to interrogate him? The more time he spent at the mercy of Grindelwald’s followers, the more Credence realized that the reason Grindelwald had failed in New York was most likely stupidity and pride rather than circumstance and bad luck. He lifted his head to stare at Thomas through his greasy waves of hair.

 

“What’s an Obscurus?” He croaked, the darkness within him pulsing gleefully at his innocent tone of voice. Thomas bared his teeth as Florence jumped to her feet and pointed accusingly at Credence’s face.

 

“LIAR! You’re LYING! We know that you’re the Obscurus!” She reached into her shawl and withdrew her wand. With every accusation, she gestured with it wildly. “Black hair! Young adult male! American! And why else would you be traveling with that Scamander freak?!”

 

“Florence, put that away!” Thomas reached out and grabbed her wand-wielding wrist in a bruising grip, pulling her close and glaring fiercely into her face. “You’ve done enough. Go sit down.”

 

“Thomas, he’s lying! He has to be!” Florence begged. Thomas shook his head and pushed her into the direction of the rock she had been sitting on previously. He turned back to Credence, who had just enough time to school his dark, insulted glare into something blank and afraid.

 

“If you aren’t an Obscurus, why haven’t you said anything? Why haven’t you tried to escape if you are innocent?”

 

Credence swallowed, knowing his stalling had come to an end. Either they would kill him, and he would never see Newt again, or he would be Obliviated and sent on his way with no idea where he was or what had happened to him. Either way, his chances were not optimistic.

 

“...because you would have killed me if I did,” he whispered, knowing that it was the truth and therefore believable. Thomas closed his eyes, apparently in defeat, and turned to face Florence with a sigh. Ernst had appeared next to her at some point, violently awoken by her earlier outburst if his sour expression was any indication. Deep in the forest, the sounds of beating wings and squawking cries grew stronger and louder, as though the very forest could sense the group’s growing tension.

 

“...Florence.”

 

“No!”

 

“Florence.”

 

“I just need more time! I can get it out of him!”

 

“I have given you as much time as I can. There is no other evidence that he’s an Obscurus!” Thomas ran a shaking hand through his short blonde hair in frustration. “You have cursed him for days, and there is not a single sign of it. All of the documents we stole said that it was destroyed years ago. You saw what you wanted to see, Florence!”

 

“...I agree.” The two blondes turned their attentions onto Ernst, who crossed his arms and glared at Thomas. “This was fun, but foolish. If Grindelwald could not find and capture such a powerful weapon, what makes you think we could?”

 

“But…” Florence trailed off into silence, her shoulders slumping and her eyes glossing with angry tears.

 

“I say we finish this, and go on as though nothing has happened. Grindelwald will never know.” Ernst continued, his gaze falling onto Credence once again. For the first time since Credence had awoken in his presence, the dark-haired wizard’s lips curled up into a smirk. “He is quite the pretty thing. Maybe I will keep him, as a souvenir.”

 

Thankfully, before the Obscurus could respond to the terror that gripped his heart at those foreboding words, the Heavens suddenly opened and rained down a storm of fire upon the trees.

 

Large billowing waves of flame swept across the peaks of pine, spreading down the trunks at alarming speeds. The dry needles blanketing the forest floor went up in ash within the blink of an eye, spreading the fire down and across the earth. Thick gray smoke began to cloud the air around them, fanned into life by the suddenly harsh northern winds. Florence screamed as blazing branches began to fall into their campsite, crushing their meager campfire into crumbling coals.

 

Just as it seemed his three captors would Disapparate away to safety, a ground-trembling roar echoed across the sky. Even from his place cowering inside his bubble, Credence felt the ground moving, pounding in time with his hammering heartbeat as the sounds of pines and towering oaks collapsing reached his ears. His three captors were knocked to the ground by the sheer force of the shaking earth, their eyes wide and disturbed. The crackling inferno continued its merciless assault on the surrounding wildlife and paid no heed to the screaming humans attempting to flee from its fury.

 

Credence heard a thundering CRACK to his right, and looked up just in time to see another jet of flame flying straight into their clearing. He watched in fascinated horror as it consumed the wilting bodies of the wizards and witch that had tormented him endlessly over the last few nights, melting their flesh and charring their bones beyond recognition. His bubble disintegrated with a weak popping sound as the bond between the spell and its caster snapped, and he quickly found himself plastered to the last remaining patch of dirt that had not yet been touched by the fire. The air around him was thicker and heavier under the weight of the smog. The heat of the smoldering trees prickled his skin and the trembling ground beneath him sent him rolling to his side as he buried his face into the crook of his arm.

 

Everything seemed to fall apart around him as he attempted to keep his airway clear and clean of smoke. The roar resounded again, so much closer this time, and the CRACK he had heard before landed directly in the tree line where he had been floating moments before. All at once the earth stopped trembling and the sounds of the storm disappeared, leaving only the snapping of the burning wood and the crashing of falling branches in the distance.

 

“Credence!”

 

At first, the fear and confusion fighting for dominance in his mind drowned out the wavering cry completely. And then the darkness inside began to whisper, pulling his head up against his will. A thousand scales as black as the Obscurus in flight filled his vision, scattering up in a sleek skin to cover a long curved neck and a pointed, smoking snout. Bright yellow eyes with slit pupils blinked down at him from beneath tall bronze horns that stuck out of the dragon’s massive head. And it was very clearly a dragon, for two black membranous wings bent the beast forward into a deep crouch above him, its back arched to reveal tall black spines in a straight column down its back.

 

Standing tall atop the beast, with flickering flames writhing in the background, was Newt Scamander.

 

The expression of concern he wore was certainly familiar, but Credence could barely recognize the rest of him. Ginger curls had been slicked back from his freckled face to keep it out of his eyes; his usual attire of a comfortable vest and buttoned shirt had been replaced with the (now slightly too large) brown uniform and belts he had worn in the war; and scuffed dark brown combat boots were laced all the way up to his knees. The suitcase they called home was nowhere to be seen, although his normally hidden wand was held openly and poised in a gloved hand.

 

Credence had never seen a more beautiful sight in all his life.

 

“Credence!” Newt flipped his wand into its holster at his hip, and patted the dragon gently on the side of its head. The dragon’s long neck bent until its chin rested flat upon the ground near Credence’s feet, allowing Newt to safely leap off of his perch and fall to his knees beside the fallen Obscurial. “Merlin’s beard, are you alright? You didn’t get burned, did you?!”

 

Newt’s hands hovered nervously over Credence’s back and shoulders as though afraid he would shatter under even the lightest touch. Though, Credence supposed, his history of Episodes was probably not the most assuring to the Magizoologist that his hands would be welcomed at the moment. Credence mustered just enough energy to reach out and grab the bottom of Newt’s shirt in his hand, his eyes clouding over with tears and his breath hitching on a sob.

 

“You—you found me!” As Credence wept, Newt whimpered and wrapped his arms under his torso to pull him up into an awkward embrace. “You came for me!”

 

“Of course I did! I will always come for you, always!” Newt’s voice trembled with emotion against Credence’s neck. He began to slowly rock them back and forth, clutching at him as though his kidnappers would suddenly rise from the grave and pull them apart again. “I’m so sorry! I’m sorry, Credence, I—I tried so hard to stop them! I swear I did!”

 

Credence buried his face into Newt’s shirt, inhaling the distant scents of dust, ink, and that of the magical habitats he had clung to during his lowest moments. Oh, how he had missed this beautiful, wild man and his tender embraces. He had almost forgotten how his every touch sent sparks of warmth spiraling up his skin. In that moment, Credence knew that he would gladly be shackled to the wall of the shed for the rest of his life if it meant never leaving Newt’s side again.

 

A nearby tree toppled to the ground, sending sparks flying everywhere and jolting both men out of their tearful reunion.

 

“Credence, we have to go!” Newt pulled back slightly and looked Credence over with a tight frown. “It’ll be faster if I carry you. May I carry you?”

 

Credence nodded, wincing as he bent his knees and rolled onto his side. Newt looped Credence’s arms around his neck and picked him up in a bridal carry, whistling through his teeth as he turned back to his dark reptilian companion. The dragon turned its neck to allow Newt easier access, eyeing Credence’s hunched form with narrowed eyelids.

 

“It’s alright, Betsy, there’s a good girl,” Newt said soothingly, keeping one hand under Credence’s knees and reaching out to grab onto the dragon’s nearest horn with the other. “Steady now!”

 

Newt crouched so that his knees balanced on either side of the dragon’s—Betsy’s—neck with Credence resting on his thighs. With a loud growl that had Credence tightening his hold on the wizard’s neck, Betsy raised her head high and spread her wings as wide as the forest allowed. Her long tail whipped out in an arch behind her, pushing off of the ground and she barreled forward and flapped her wings. The flames around them bent with the air currents caused by her down-stroke, some of them dying out completely as the three of them lifted up into the air and out above the treetops.

 

Credence did not loosen his grip until they were calmly soaring through the dark clouds of the slowly setting sun. There were so many things he wanted to ask, so many touches and kisses he wanted to bestow upon his fearless rescuer, but Newt’s hand still dug into Credence’s skin where it wrapped around his knee and his breath still escaped in heavy sighs of distress. And so, as he had learned was the best way to calm Newt’s nerves, Credence turned his attention to the nearest magical creature.

 

“What kind is she?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“...Betsy.”

 

“Oh, she’s a Norwegian Ridgeback. A rather gregarious breed, as dragons go.” As predicted, the tension in Newt’s posture began to loosen and his grip on Credence’s leg softened. “Very calm, very friendly, if you know how to approach them.”

 

“She’s pretty.”

 

“Yes, she is. I was glad to see she still remembered me, even after all these years. But, then, dragons are quite intelligent, so…” Newt’s voice trailed off, carried away by the harsh winds blowing through their hair. Betsy kept an even pace, flapping her wings only every so often if the currents began to drop. Credence blinked and turned his head in order to look up at Newt’s shuttered expression.

 

“You...She was one of yours?” Newt had not talked much about his time in the war, and any mentions of it resulted in a forced smile and cheerful tone, or an awkward stretch of silence until something else distracted them. In fact, Credence had only ever seen rough sketches of the dragons Newt had trained and rode into battle. The fact that he could now say that he had met one was...unexpected.

 

“...Yes. She was quite young, when they...when they _recruited_ her.” Newt shifted his hand on Betsy’s horn to rub gently at the base of its insertion on her forehead. A rolling rumble deep inside her gut was her only response. “I keep tabs on most of them, when I can. Betsy was the closest to where they took you.”

 

Newt hugged Credence even closer to his chest, burying his lips into the greasy, tangled nest that had become his hair.

 

“…I was so worried,” Newt confessed in a whisper. “I thought I was too late. I thought they had—”

 

“...I didn’t lose control. Not once,” Credence said. Newt looked down at him in surprise, the first emotion besides anger and worry that he had shown all afternoon.

 

“You didn’t?”

 

“No. I refused.” Credence reached his limit of comfortable conversation about his capture, choosing to turn his face back into Newt’s shirt instead of elaborating further. Newt accepted this as the request for space it was, and didn’t question him for the rest of the night.

 

Instead, they curled up together in Betsy’s cave in the highest mountains beneath the shelter of her wing. Newt wrapped his arm securely around Credence’s waist after casting more shield spells over the cave entrance than was probably necessary, his gloves long since discarded and his hair falling in stiff straightened strands over his forehead. Credence stayed awake deep into the night, measuring each soothing thud of his partner’s heartbeat beneath his ear. He knew that he would have to tell Newt about what happened to him, and that he would have nightmares about it all for weeks. Even though Newt would probably try to coax him out, he would not be comfortable leaving the suitcase for a long while once they retrieved it.

 

But for now, in the dark protection of a dragon’s nest, he reveled in the knowledge that Newt Scamander had literally walked through fire to bring him home safely.

  

 


End file.
